Promoting strong public schools for Providence\’s East Side and beyond

The Case for a new Nathan Bishop Building

At our Feb. 7th meeting, we took a straw poll of attendees to find out whether, given what they knew and heard at the meeting, they supported renovating Nathan Bishop or constructing a new building. While there are clearly arguments on both sides, the overwhelming majority supported new construction. After the meeting, we posted an online survey. You can read the comments of your neighbors, both those who attended the meeting and those who did not, in this blog post.

In the following, ESPEC Steering Committee member Sam Zurier lays out the argument for new construction.

THE CASE FOR A NEW NATHAN BISHOP BUILDING by Sam Zurier

In January’s column, I began to review the issues involved in choosing new construction or renovation for the Nathan Bishop building. Since then, the City has announced that it has budgeted $35 million to renovate the Nathan Bishop building, but has left to the community the option of choosing the alternative of $23 million for new construction. The City’s school construction consultant has indicated that the City has a March deadline to submit a final application to the State Department of Education to fund the construction of the Nathan Bishop facility. In its final application, the City must state a clear choice between renovation and new construction.

At a February 7 community meeting, a group of slightly more than 100 East Side residents, including many parents of school age children, were presented with information about the two alternatives. A straw poll at the end of the meeting produced a nearly unanimous vote for new construction, qualified by a desire of some to receive more information before making a final decision. Based on the information at the meeting, and the comments from those attending, the case for a new building at the Nathan Bishop site has three principal components: interior compatibility, cost, and environmental concerns.

1. Interior compatibility There is a national trend in school construction to make the floor plan of schools more compatible with contemporary educational practice. To prevent children from slipping through the cracks in large, impersonal settings, today’s best middle schools create smaller communities that allow students to feel less isolated, and teachers to feel better connected to their students. Classrooms are grouped into clusters to allow students to get to know each other better, and areas are set aside in each cluster for teams of teachers to meet and make plans for the students under their common care. New construction supports a compatible design, including the opportunity to place the common parts of the school (cafeteria, gymnasium, offices) in a central location with convenient access for each cluster. Given a clean slate, a new building of 95,000 square feet would provide a suitable learning space for the new school.

The current building’s skeleton of self-contained classrooms has many structural elements that cannot be altered, compromising the values of modern school interior design. These constraints would increase the renovated school’s size to 110,000 square feet. Even this larger footprint would not fill the current building; instead, a new use would have to be found for the current building’s third floor. It is not an easy matter to find a use for that space that is affordable and compatible with the needs of the middle school on floors one and two.

2. Cost The DeJong figures of $35 million for renovation and $23 million for new construction for Nathan Bishop describe some, but not all of the cost issues raised by this choice. On the one hand, the $35 million renovation figure includes the building’s third floor, which contributes around $8 million to the total. It does not include $2 million to pay for a new gym addition to replace the current undersized ones in the basement. Thus, the net figure for renovation is closer to $29 million. With that said, there is a funding issue. The State pays 80% of the cost of school construction under a program that requires State review and approval. The State likely will reject funding for the third floor of a renovated building, as that floor will not be used for a school. As a result, the City would have to pay 100% of that cost, rather than 20%. In fact, there is a risk that the State would reject the Nathan Bishop renovation plan entirely, as even the first two floors involve extra floor space and significant extra cost ($29 million versus $23 million once we remove the $8 million third floor) with no additional educational benefit.

3. Environment Modern school construction advances the goals of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. The difference begins with the 15,000 additional square feet of space that must be heated and cooled in the renovation floor plan. Beyond that, modern school construction permits the use of materials and techniques that permit energy conservation, and to some degree the use of renewable energy, such as a modest, partial use of solar energy funded under current state programs. The City’s school construction consultant has expertise in this area.

4. Exterior Issues The preservation community was not visibly present at the February 7 community meeting, and I expect that they will be making their case for renovation in the coming weeks. The Nathan Bishop building is part of the Freeman Plat Historic District. As a result, a City decision to carry out new construction would be subject to review by the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission. That body would have to balance the public policy needs of new construction (such as those described above) against the particular historic preservation values associated with the current building, such as whether it was associated with any famous historical figures, or whether its architecture is significant.

Finally, it is important to realize that the choice of new construction cannot be viewed in the abstract. The impact of a new building depends significantly on its design and the construction standards used to build it. The City’s school construction consultant acknowledged that recent Providence school buildings have failed to incorporate these standards, resulting in building-block designs and lower-quality materials and construction methods that some have labeled “prison architecture.” The consultant assured the group, however, that current plans for new schools in Providence are well conceived and adequately funded. With that said, any new construction for Nathan Bishop would need to follow an open construction design process that ensured that the new building would blend well with its neighbors, perhaps incorporating into its design some of the distinctive features of the current building as a reminder of the location’s heritage.

By the time that this column goes to press, there will be additional community meetings and other opportunities for individuals and groups to add their voice to this debate. A prompt, open and well-informed decision on the facilities question will be an important milestone in the progress of the New Nathan Bishop.

Like this:

Related

One Response

I can see many pros and cons to both sides (raze vs. renovate). While I’m not working with complete information, it seems to me that we should look more fully at all options.

Generally, I don’t like to lose historic buildings. There has been way too much of that happening. It’s our heritage, after all, and NB looks good in our neighborhood.

Also, looking at some sustainability issues, maintaining and reusing historic buildings is fundamentally a “green” way of doing things. The amount of resources to build new, and most often lost in demolition piles, is phenomenal and while we might get a really cool, “green” building, there is a chance we won’t. I see the potential for cutting corners all over the place as budgets tighten and materials become increasingly expensive.

I actually think that to make the school work with the existing structure, we should consider doing some selective demolition. For instance, connect the two courtyards at NB and create one large, beautiful courtyard. The overall building space would be made more in line with the projections needed/wanted. Each grade (6-8) could have a floor to itself, and the courtyard would let in plenty of natural light. People can get creative with the design of each floor, whether it’s pods or classroom, or whatever.

This sort of selective demolition might also even allow for the school to reopen much more quickly, especially if, as has been proposed, the school opens to one grade a year over the next few years.

Anyway, no matter what happens, I’m interested in making NB and all the other school buildings in Providence as “green” as possible. There are many exciting opportunities and ‘greening’ a school doesn’t necessarily mean greater costs; in fact, it can save money.

One other point about renovation vs. razing alluded to earlier, and something to consider (especially considering that we’re nearly at max capacity at the Johnston landfill) no matter how it goes at NB and all other school facilities are the following stats (taken from a recent report, http://www.cap-e.com/ewebeditpro/items/O59F7707.pdf):

About 25% of the solid waste discarded nationally is construction and demolition (C&D) waste, adding up to 130 million tons of waste per year. Fifty-seven percent of national C&D waste comes from non-residential building projects, deriving from three sources:

• demolition, which creates about 155 pounds of waste per square foot, and makes up 58% of national non-residential C&D waste;
• construction, which creates about 3.9 pounds of waste per square foot, and makes up 6% of national non-residential C&D waste;
• renovation, which makes up 36% of national non-residential C&D waste